How hard is it to get into UCLA as an international student?

Well…bump that one up to the reaches too!

OP posted this:

Just FYI to,the OP…these schools on his list don’t GIVE merit scholarships: Harvard,mstanford, Princeton, MIT, Yale, Cornell, Penn, Georgetown, Caltech. So forget abou getting scholarships there.

Some of the other schools do give scholarships but only to their most competitive admitted students. I don’t see this student getting aid anywhere on his list…unless he scores BIG on the SAT and gets auto merit aid at Alabama.

@thumper1
I don’t really need aid, but it would be better with it. I don’t mind paying a lot for top schools as it should be ‘worth’ it. It’s not justified that my dad pays 300k for some lowly ranked university. I understand that USC is pretty good school but i was hoping if I could get their scholarship with my stats.

It you look at my post: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-southern-california/1887151-international-student-financial-aid-from-university-of-southern-california-usc-p1.html
In comment 12, i have already stated that I can afford it.

And guys, I’m pretty sure I can get a 1400-1450 on the new SAT. And if you add that to my valedictorian status and 4.0 GPA, it is cakewalk. I remember posting earlier that UCLA has an acceptance rate of 50% for students with 3.9+ GPA

Do your homework on what it takes to be competitive for a scholarship for an international. Even if it’s just at a “pretty good” school.

What kind of HS do you attend? How competitive is it? Are grades weighted or unweighted?
Entrance into the top schools is EXTREMELY competitive, and even more so for internationals. No one “wants” to pay $300K, and sure anyone would want free money to attend a desired school, but many of the schools on your list do not offer merit $ and for those that do, the student, particularly an international, has to have extremely competitive stats. Be more realistic.

@jym626 I go to a top private HS. Actually one of the best in my country.
It however isn’t known for sending students to the top universities in the US. Our school usually sends 1 student to the Ivies every 3 years or so.
BUT…
My school is a feeder school to Oxford and Cambridge. My school regularly sends a multitude of students to OxBridge each year. My school teaches the british system and thus most students are british. The britishers wouldn’t really bother with applying to the US, when the UK already has great colleges for a fraction of the price. I know my US stats aren’t really good right now, but my A-level results are fantastic. I have a great chance to get into top UK universities like UCL, KCL and Imperial. For me, location doesn’t really matter much. All I want is top notch education and rep.

OK. The British education sounds like a good option for you. Top schools at a fraction of the price.

Yep, your school would prepare you far better for admission to the top British unis than the top (or even upper-middle-class) American ones.

Almost all the American unis you listed are reaches for you.

It’s not going to be a cakewalk to get into UCLA. There are instate residents who are top,students who don’t get accepted

And guaranteed…you will get no need based aid…and probably no merit aid.

There are TONS of students from your region with top stats applying to UCLA. And they all think they will get accepted. They won’t.

If your school is a feeder to Cambridge and Oxford, maybe you have a better chance of being accepted there.

In addition, I would put a school in your country on your application list.

According to a post in the Facebook UCLA C/O 2020 group, the average unweighted GPA of incoming freshmen is 3.9.
But hey, admission as an international will be a cakewalk with your 1840 SAT. But what would I know? I’m just a lowly member of California’s weak, weak applicant pool.

@dr0wning
Bruh, you have no idea how hard the SAT is for international students. In the british system, grammar is only taught up till 8th grade. Basically, I haven’t studied grammar for almost 4 years now. And considering the difficulty of the SAT, we brit students tend to be very weak on the eng section of the SAT.

And by no means I am a weak student. I could easily be considered in the top 0.5% of students in the world.

The SAT for international students is the same one taken by all students around the world. The expectation is that you will study English, and do well. Simply put, your college instruction will be in English. All of your papers will be written in English. All of your exams will be in English. If you get an internship, ypu will be expected to speak English.

Students in the top 0.5% in the world would score higher than your score on the SAT.

Am guessing they haven’t taught that class in hubris yet… [-X

I hope you know that the 3.9 is unweighted for your 50% admit rate. So even then, people who have perfect GPAs only have a 50/50 chance to get in.

You are failing to realise how competitive these schools are - I’m glad UCLA accepted me, but a lot of my extremely qualified friends were not.

I would hope that as an English speaker and British student, you would understand English grammar.

The SAT is the exact same test, whether administered in the U.S. or not. In fact, it’s probably even easier because Collegeboard reuses SAT exams for international administrations.

Unlike you, I am in the top .5% of students (by SAT score). Also unlike you, I understand that arrogance is not a valued trait…

And, for the record, I don’t consider myself within the top 1%, let alone top .5%, of the world. That’s just ridiculous. UCLA admissions officers are not going to see your 1840 SAT score and think, “gee, the standardized SAT is so hard for international students! Since we have so much space for them, and our acceptance rate is 70%, not 17%, we can relax the standards. After all, it’s so hard for British students to understand English grammar! We absolutely must make allowances for them. Those poor top .5% students, life is so hard.”

@KingYusHalo Not only are you arrogant and pretentious, but you are also completely wrong. I don’t mean to berate you for whinging, but international students that follow British curriculum (I’m assuming your talking about schools where GCSEs/IGCSEs and IB/A-Levels are offered) have been taught basic grammar rules implicitly. Also, the whole point of the SAT is to make sure that it is standardized so that everyone can be fairly evaluated. I’ll admit that I too initially struggled to balance GCSE revision and SAT/ACT revision but after making a few sacrifices (i.e missing out on the new season of Game of Thrones), I finally got the score I needed in the end. I have talked to alumni from my school that have gone to top uni’s (HYPS, Top UCs) and they all said that international students need to have scores that are just as competitive as US students. I hope you take on board this advice, and I hope you end up at UCLA!

@KingYusHalo Even your alias shows that you are extremely arrogant and self-absorbed! With your SAT even low tiered UCs would not admit you, let alone top UCs!
You think you are a “King” based on the first part of your alias, but the last part of your alias is more descriptive of you (“Halo” if pronounced differently: hollow ?).
I did not intend to be harsh on you but I could not help myself with so much BS from you!
My daughter with an SAT of 2370 thinks of herself as an average student in UCLA and you think of yourself …

OP: there will be students with 4.0/1600 that are rejected.

1400 won’t get merit at a UC.

Schools do not give a “break” to English speaking internationals on the SAT.

Sorry. You are not that special. In the US, you are an average high performing student.

Face it now, or we’ll look out for your “I’m a superstar and I got shut out” post next spring!

Op, what’s your intended major?

@uclaparent9 @NewAgeGilgamesh @HRSMom
I understand that I’m quite arrogant but please do not undermine my intelligence. In my IG’s exam, english was the only subject that I got a B grade in(which shows that I have a huge weakness in english). Anyway I have around 7 months to practice for the SAT and I hope to improve by quite a lot. Other than my SAT score, my academics and extracurriculars are excellent. So are my SATII’s.
I sure hope I wouldn’t be in that situation where I post “I’m a superstar and I got shut out”. But If i do, I’ll smack myself in the head and I’ll make sure to let you guys know.

@reden2016 I might be going for EE or MechE. I’ve seen a post somewhere stating the acceptance rate for EE is ~25%. But then again, students going for EE are well above average.